Dodge City times., 1887-12-29
DRINK AND LABOR.

DRINK AND LABOR.
The Injury workins-msn Jnn,ct Upon
Themselves BY Intsmpersace.
Working-men generally have no adj
equate conception of the injury they
infict upon themselves by intemper-
ance. As rule, those who drink at
all do, at times, drink to excess. But
they can not afford to drink even
moderately. Those whose wages ars
highest, have no margins, after supply.
ing the present needs of their families,
and making necessary provision for tho
future, to waste in drink. Every cent
so wasted is robbed from their families.
The five to twenty-five cents per day
they spend in "moderate drinking"
makes all the difference between de-
cent poverty-with the necessaries and
many of the comforts of life. and some
saving for the future and ''livinS
from hand to mouth" with scant
supply of daily needs. and condition
continually growing worse.
The annual drink bill of the wage
workers of this country has been esti-
mated by George Frederic Parsons to
be $500, ,OOO. 900. Others say it is $780,
600. 900. Several witnesses, some Of
them employers, others laborers, testi-
fed before the United States Senate
Committee on the Relations Between
Capital and Labor, that 'fully one
tenth of all wages is spent for drink
1t Is plain that the withdrawal of this
sum from the living of people. who.
by the utmost diligence and sobriety,
can only secure enough to supply their
real wants, must produce widespread
destitution and suffering.
But the evils entailed by this waste
do not stop with the suffering it pro-
duces. The drink habits of workmen
agggravate all the grievances of which
they complain. and effectually hinder
their removal. One of these griev-
ances is too low wages. But drinking
men are ''bears'' on the labor market
Witnesses before the Senate Commit
tee testified that drinking workmen
keep down wages to the rate they them
selves can command" They lower
wages in three ways:
l. BY uniting themselves for tho
best work and pay. The man who
drinks is not so good a workman as
one who does not. From one to threo
quarts of beer day, with an OCCASION
al spree on something stronger, DIS
qualities any man for doing full work
and the best work.
2. He is not only weakened or de-
bauched by drink, but his margins arc
wasted, and he must work for what he
can get, or beg, or starve. Having
nothing saved, he is obliged to go into
the market and sell his labor for what
ever he can get.
8. The price of work depends upon
the demand for work. and the demand
for work depends upon the demand for
the products of labor. and that. in turn.
upon the purchasing power of the peo-
pie.
Now. wage-workers not only spend
$500, 600. 600 annually for drink, but.
as was shown in articles on 1.-The
Waste of Drink" in the Union Signal.
waste as much more in time lost
through the effects of drink. Thus
81, OO0. 600. 600 is taken from the means
they would otherwise have to pur-
chase the necessaries of life. 1t is easy
to see how drink habits Of workmen.
which prevent the investment Of
b ,O0O, 600, 900 in the products of legiti-
mate industry, bear the labor market
by lessening the demand for those
products. But this is not all; for it.
leaves out of account the higher rents
arinking-men have to pay. All tho
tax rentable property pays to support
the paupers and criminals made by the
liquor traffic is taken out of the peo-
pie in inceased rent This additional
sum paid by the wage-earner as rent
would otherwise be used to buy food.
ETC., and SO would help to
increase the demand for and price Of
The labor necessary to produce those
The economic anomaly
IF so-callcd over-production, while
thousands are destitute of the very
things said to be over produced. is
really the result of under-consumption
BY people impoverished by drink
Cbds. H. Zimmerman. in Onion Signal.
A LEADING California newspaper
has the following winning advertise
nent: ''Ladies. drop into the Liquid
Fuel Lunch Room. fitted up expressly